Love on the highest plain

J.C. O’Hair once wrote in a poem:

If we’re on the way to glory,
Joy should fill our soul;
’Tis done by the Holy Spirit when
The Spirit has control.
There are burdens, trials, sorrows,
But God’s abounding grace,
He says, is all sufficient for
Every single case

The societal cry today is to be accepted, to belong, to have a connection. Humans will spend untold time, money, resources, etc., to gain acceptance.

The acceptance that never goes away, though, is when God Himself accepts His child into His family and meets--completely and unconditionally--the deep-down yearning, drive, thirst of the heart.

God’s assurance is the encapsulizing, safe-seal envelopment of His everlasting arms of love.

The Holy Spirit prays through Paul, who prays for Believers, “That you may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.”

Facing head-on the challenges, the struggles, the injustices, the harsh realities, we can say in and through it all: “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
[38] For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
[39] Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I John 4:10 says, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

“When we remember what our Lord passed through as He came and died for us, we see that many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it,” writes Bible expositor Cora MacIlravy (1916). “It was as He poured out His life, that He bore His darling one through the waves and billows of God’s broken law and His wrath, and planted her upon the Rock of Ages…

“There is a peculiar condition that reveals how the love of God dwelleth in our hearts. When our love is burning strong and bright, and our hunger for our Beloved is deepening, we are more concerned to have Him work in us and make us to His glory, than we are to work for Him…

“The children of God are so busy! So busy! They are running here and there…The Spirit would woo them to draw close to the Lord, to learn to love Him; God would have them love Him with all their hearts and strength, and Jesus Christ is waiting to fill their lives so that naught could gain access to their hearts excepting that which comes from Him…

“It is after we’ve been subdued, refined, and chastened; when love of self and the world is gone, that we learn to abide in touch with Him at all times, and in all places and surroundings...

“While there is fierce, and sometimes awful conflict going on over us as the battle grounds, when we hide away in Jesus Christ and abide there, there is peace within, which flows like a river. It is the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, that garrisons and keeps guard at the doors of our hearts.

“The enemy may rage and attack us on the outside, but if we abide in our hiding place, and our hearts are thus guarded, he cannot bring to our hearts one fear or feeling of dismay.

"Oh, what wonderful peace that abides and flows like rivers of waters within our souls, watering every channel of our lives; that brings sweetness and assurance within when the conflict is raging without, and when the enemy would besiege us with all his army of darkness!...

“Nowhere can we gather sweet flowers and sweet spices to take up to our Beloved, but in this wilderness path…The peace of God is as different from the peace of circumstances, which those have who are living upon a low level, as heaven is different from earth.

“It is nearly always in the hard conflict and persecution, that the peace of God flourishes and is perfected. Many times, God’s children who are living upon a low plain, mistake the peace that comes because the enemy finds nothing in their lives to oppose, for the peace of God.

“Truly, with those who are going through with Jesus and have set their faces as overcomers, the conflict is as the company of two armies, which are engaged in a death struggle. ‘Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.’ ”